Right Thinking from the Left Coast

Tag: Time Magazine

There was that Sesame Street game when I was a wee lad in the days of the dinosaurs, where the protagonists always sang that song about one of the items not being the same or not belonging, and in this case of the recent Time Magazine release, I think the same applies.

Time loves symbolism, and still thinks of itself as edgy, so anyone or anything that can be portrayed as “sticking it to the man”, gets special consideration:

“The Protester” has been named Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2011.

The news magazine cited dissent across the Middle East that has spread to Europe and the United States and said these protesters are reshaping global politics.

The selection was announced Wednesday on NBC’s “The Today Show.”

Time’s “Person of the Year” is the person or thing that the magazine feels has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year, for good or for ill.

Time said it is recognizing protesters because they are “redefining people power” around the world.

That’s quite a stretch, lumping those Egyptians and other ME protestors who were fighting despotism and embracing democracy with those disaffected spoiled and grumpy youth at Zuccotti Park, and Frank Ogawa Plaza who’s beef primarily is that they want more free shit from the government. I guess we could put those London rioters protestors in to the mix, their actions were in defiance of their government’s new austerity programs that were needed to stave of bankruptcy. Ditto with those people of the year folks in Greece, although for them it was too late.

It is difficult to calculate a monetary figure, to put a price tag on the damage caused by these celebrated protestors. The last word out of NY that I heard was that the current cost was $15 million, and rising. Times that by all the other cities that had to pony up extra funds to police their protestors. Factor in the commerce lost in those affected cities, the jobs lost by businesses closing their doors. Then move to all the dopey port closures yesterday, the goods that did not get unloaded, trucked, and moved to their proper destinations. I won’t even count all the property damage done and the costs to replace that.

Given Time’s biases in the past wrt their political endorsements, and being an unabashed and unrepentant Obama supporter, you would think that Time would be scolding these protestors for their part in retarding the economic recovery, which is still on this president’s watch.

Well, at least all the rape, assault, mugging, and VD spreading victims can get some solace, knowing that they were just a small part of history in the making.